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Following is a post by 'Petrodollar' in the following thread at peakoil.com. This poster seems to know what he is talking about (has written a book on the subject), and what I have previously read about the situation 'plots' with his summary. I am reproducing the post here because it provides excellent factual information for the coming attacks (when TSHTF next year) on why the Clinton Administration did nothing regarding energy independence. http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic21121-0-asc-60.html On the one hand I can understand your desire to "blame" Gore for not publicly discussing Peak Oil until recently, but you must put history in context before you draw condemnations. Indeed, a lot more is known today than what was known just 8 to 10 years ago.
The first "authoritative" and analytical report on global peak oil that I am aware of was Petroconsultant's 1995 report “The World’s Oil Supply (1930–2050)” - which predicted that peak oil production would occur in the decade following 2000. (written in part by Dr. Colin Campbell). It is rumored the CIA is or was the largest client of Petroconsultants (now IHS Energy), but it is unknown if this report was well received as far as the veracity of the data - but it is a good question for historians....
Anyhow, the one big caveat in that report I suspect were all the estimates from the mid-1990s until late 2001 that the Caspian Sea region could have up to 200 billion barrels of untapped oil, making it the “oil find of the century" - and push back Peak Oil for 12 to 15 years. I think Enron was "banking" on cheap natural gas from the Caspian and a trans-Afghanistan pipeline to save their company re their huge investment in India...
{For that famous quote about the "oil find of the century" see: Stephen Kinzer, “Pipe Dreams: A Perilous New Contest for the Next Oil Prize,” New York Times, September 24, 1997, IV-1}
Indeed, from 1997-1998 the US government and Taliban were negotiating over a trans-Afghanistan pipeline, but these talks were interrupted when two US Embassies in East Africa were bombed during August 1998. These terrorists’ attacks were attributed to Osama bin Laden, who was a “guest” of the Taliban regime. Former president Clinton subsequently launched a cruise missile attack against targets associated with bin Laden, ordered the negotiations with the Taliban called off, and imposed sanctions against the “rogue regime.” Any exploration and worthwhile extraction of the Caspian oil would have to wait until the landscape in central Asia become more conducive to oil pipelines, etc.
{FYI: According to Jean Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie in the French book, The Forbidden Truth, the Bush administration ignored the UN sanctions that had been imposed upon the Taliban and entered into secret negotiations with this supposedly rogue regime from February 2, 2001, to August 6, 2001. The Taliban were not cooperative, according to the statements of Mr. Naik, Pakistan’s former ambassador. He reported that the US threatened a military option if the Taliban did not acquiesce to Washington’s demands about a proposed pipeline route that had to traverse Afghanistan. But I digress...}
I suspect in the late 1990s and perhaps even as the Bush administration entered office in 2001 that the US government may have deducted that the "vast and untapped" Caspian oil would push Peak Oil somewhat into the future. Here's a sampling of the euphoria that surrounded the Caspian in the late 1990s...
Quote:
I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian.
— Former CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, 1998
However, in December 2001, just after US troops took over the capital of Afghanistan, British Petroleum (BP) announced disappointing Caspian drilling results. According to Dale Allen Pfeiffer, an oil industry analyst and former researcher for Michael Ruppert’s www.fromthewilderness.com website, after three exploratory wells were analyzed, it was reported that the Caspian region contains much less oil than originally reported, although there are vast amounts of natural gas. Also, it was discovered that Caspian oil is of poor quality, with up to 20 percent sulfur content, which makes it expensive to refine and creates huge volumes of environmentally damaging waste products.
In 2002 the consulting group PetroStrategies published a study estimating that the Caspian Basin contained only 8 to 39.4 bb of oil. Shortly after this report was discussed in the petroleum news sources, BP and other Western oil companies began reducing their investment plans in the region...and at that point I think the reality of Peak Oil began to creep into consciousness...
Despite exaggerated claims of the “oil find of the century” and predictions of a 'new Saudi Arabia' outside the Middle East, the State Department announced in November 2002 that “Caspian oil represents 4% of world reserves. It will never dominate the world’s markets.”
Unfortunately, this unexpected realization about the Caspian Sea region had serious implications for the US, India, China, Asia, and Europe, since the estimated amount of available hydrocarbons for industrialized and developing nations was now significantly decreased - by 20% in fact if you believed the 200 b/bl estimate. For me, the arguments regarding PO became more valid and convincing after that point, but it was only 4 years ago that the "Caspian myth" was essentially de-bunked
Bottomline: I seem to recall a much more optimistic assessment of global energy supplies (both oil & gas) up thru 2000 when Clinton & Gore left office. Oil was only $10 a barrel in 1998, and talk of Peak Oil would have labeled Gore or whomever an "alarmist" at the very least, and certainly not helped in any future election based on what happened in 1980. (more on that in a moment)
Did the data in the mid to late 1990s support that Peak Oil was imminent? It's hard to tell until relevant CIA and/or DOE documents are released - at which point you will likely be in your 30s or 40s - assuming such documents will ever be released.
The only US President to really address the issue was Jimmy Carter - and every US politician believes that he lost his re-election bid to Reagan in part due to his "pessimistic" (honest) views on global energy supplies, along with that embarrassing incident re American hostages in Tehran during 1979 and the disastrous/failed rescue mission in 1980 didn't help either. Indeed, 30 years ago Carter stated something that no US politician has dared stated until March 2005 when Rep Roscoe Bartlett began his PO crusade in Congress.
Quote:
We are grossly wasting our energy resources … as though their supply was infinite. We must even face the prospect of changing our basic ways of living. This change will either be made on our own initiative in a planned and rational way, or forced on us with chaos and suffering by the inexorable laws of nature.
— Jimmy Carter, 1976 |
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